Many feared the consequences of Jose Aldo cutting more weight and dropping down to bantamweight, but at UFC 245, the former featherweight champion did perform a lot better than expected.
“I never cut weight so easily in my life. It was way easier than everybody imagined,” Aldo told MMA Fighting. “I knew it would be easy as soon as I started this diet months ago.”
That program was handled by nutritionist Dr. Priscila Antunes, and it was apparently the first time Aldo went on a strict diet in his career.
“He hates nutritionists,” Dr. Antunes said, also noting that she forced Aldo to get rid of ice cream and candy. “But he trusted me. Aldo is very focused, you know? He had nowhere to run, he needed a nutritionist this time. He couldn’t do it by himself. And his diet was pretty easy.”
As MMA Fighting noted, Aldo was down to 150 lbs at around October 22, and was on a “train low, sleep high” carb diet. A month before the December 14 fight, he was at 147 lbs, and they eventually switched to a ketogenic diet on the week before the weigh ins.
“I think that’s one of the reasons why Aldo had so much cardio in his fight,” Dr. Antunes said, noting how the weight came off easily after that. “Many athletes tend to follow a protein diet before the weigh-ins. I’ve had that experience before but I think it broke my athletes. When I did the ketogenic diet with him, it worked.”
Aldo says he woke up on weigh in day at 135.5 lbs, and “wasn’t desperate to drink water” like in past fights. Dr. Atunes noted that Aldo was around 155.5 lbs by the time he stepped inside the Octagon.
Source: Blooyelbow.com
